Hello!
please consider the AVB Protocol option as an optional card.
Today, this Protocol is quite relevant, and the leaders of the audio industry are already using this Protocol
+1
Would like this option on dLive as well.
this is difficult at the moment
too many problems between the vendors implementations…
it will take some more time to solve the issues I guess
Steffen is right in saying that cross-vendor interoperability is still an issue for AVB. In fact, I’ll go further in saying that there is no such thing as an ‘AVB protocol’. The AVB set of standards regards primarily hardware, and doesn’t dictate on what protocol to use. Most pro audio companies claiming to use AVB are in fact using a Layer 2 protocol known as IEEE1722, which makes use of some AVB standards. IEEE1722, in turn, doesn’t really specify a connection management layer nor a device discovery protocol, which explains the interoperability challenge.
The MILAN initiative, supported by leading speaker manufacturers, promises to solve this, and at A&H we are watching such development with interest. If MILAN picks up in the industry, we will certainly consider developing an option card.
Thanx Nicola
How incompatible could the vendors’ implementations ultimately be when, for instance, MOTU advertises that Macs can communicate natively with their products via AVB? (Certainly they still advise using USB or Thunderbolt for latency and performance, but AVB does supposedly work.)
It would be great to see AVB support in A&H products. Even if no one is conforming perfectly to Milan yet, perhaps A&H could be the one to set the example.
How incompatible could the vendors’ implementations ultimately be when, for instance, MOTU advertises that Macs can communicate natively with their products via AVB?
so many contradictions in this statement… 
the communication and the configuration is a problem… this is solved by the vendors itself, but it still prevents devices of different vendors from communication together…
The audio data (stream) part is normally not the problem, but gets a problem again with Milan. Milan is not compatible to MacOS-AVB and this implies that MOTU-AVB is not compatible to Milan as well.
Device management and connection management is not “solved” in AVB(TSN), Milan tries to solve this… there are how many products out there to support Milan? 3? maybe 4?
One real problem is that the AVB world (TSN) is “driven” by car manufacturers with their own problems and system interoperability is not valid for them.
A different problem is that you need special hardware to use TSN.
Standard unmanaged switches do not work (and will never do) and many expensive managed switches don’t perform well or need upgrades to comply to TSN.
Again, Milan tries to provide a solution… but it’s far from practical relevance at the moment.
This all could change in the next years… but AVNU alliance behaves like all other organizations before… I doubt that Milan will become a replacement technology for Dante, Ravenna or Soundgrid in the next 5 years.
AES67 was a good starting point, but Milan still lacks support for AES67… that would change anything.
If Milan will become connectable to AES67 it will have much success within months.
Not seeing the contradictions.
One way or another, MOTU at least came up with something that works and that easily solves the problem of capturing large numbers of channels without special hardware. A&H hasn’t.
One way or another, MOTU at least came up with something that works and that easily solves the problem of capturing large numbers of channels without special hardware.
What you mean with “without special hardware”?
MOTU sells audio interfaces… not special enough?
I know… just hardware… and compatible to all MOTU interfaces with AVB, a Mac and… ahm nothing else?
I’m not trying to pick an argument.
But, MOTU does have AVB drivers for Windows. All I’m saying is, there’s no equivalent solution from A&H. I’d need a Dante card from A&H, a Dante PCIe card, and an external PCIe enclosure, and the capabilities still wouldn’t match AVB (or whatever you want to call it). That’s $2000 worth of hardware. Also, that solution may well be a dead end for Mac.
It would be great to have a better option from A&H. I really don’t care much whether that solution is called “AVB”, so long as it works. If it doesn’t even require drivers on the platform with pretty much unarguably better audio interface support, all the better.
There is always one with other needs. But the story of an audio network protocol is not finished to be written. at the moment Dante is the more versatile protocol with more supported devices compared to AVB/Milan. You cannot only connect mixers with Dante cards to computers, there are also a lot of sources and sinks available out there which do support Dante, Wireless microphones, simple line to Dante and Dante to line converters, Sound reinforcement systems with Dante, Stageboxes, Audio Interfaces … just to name some categories. With AVB/Milan there is currently only a very small amount of devices available and most of them are incompatible. You say that Motu-AVB is supported by current Macs. But what if I am using Windows and want to use such devices using the network? so what will help you with your Mac would be a No Go for me and my Windows Computer?
I am running Dante on several Mixers from different Vendors and am using also several computer in that Dante network, for several reasons. I also own some Motu devices with AVB Support but had always only a reasonable success when I am using USB to connect my computer with that devices. I have to confess that my newest Mac is running on Catalina. Furthermore there are also a lot of limitation when you will run AVB on your network. You have to use one of only a view AVB enabled switches and even then it is not guaranteed that these switches can be used with AVB devies from different vendors.
One big advantage of Dante is that some big players, like Yamaha, committed their support for Dante. Until there is a similar Vendor which fully bet on AVB/Milan I see no big chance for that protocol. Frankly spoken, A&H is not one of the big player on the relevant market to do such a risky step, I am afraid.
Am I reading this correctly? “A dead end for mac.” Are you talking about Dante AoIP on Macs? Dante runs circles around AVB (well unless you are heavily invested in the “V” part). AVB espoused by a lot of reinforcement hardware companies but well overtaken by the sheer numbers of companies embracing Dante. It is Betamax v. VHS and I think that there is little question that Dante will be the “only real game” in AoIP.
That opinion and five bucks will buy you a Starbucks.
D.
Am I reading this correctly? “A dead end for mac.”
if Apple is changing it’s AVB software it is possible to support Milan
they have to implement new talkers and listeners and need to implement the discovery part of Milan
and it would be no problem to make it compatible to older AVB solutions and Milan
Dante runs circles around AVB (well unless you are heavily invested in the “V” part).
What you mean?
There is no real AVB Video product available at the moment, at least I’m not aware of any
Audinate released Dante Video last year
SMPTE introduced 2 standards for video over IP that integrate multichannel audio as well
The whole AoIP and VoIP is not clear for the future… everything changes all the time
We will see what the future will provide…
To make a decision which route to go we can only trust on available products…
Am I reading this correctly? “A dead end for mac.”
You’re reading, but not understanding. Dante currently has no compatibility story for future Mac hardware. That $2000 solution I quoted is what’s currently required, if I’m not mistaken, to stream upwards of 32 channels at maximum sample rate to a computer, and there are currently no plans to support Dante PCIe cards on Apple Silicon, making the solution a dead end on Mac. (I was told it’s simply not possible, but I don’t think that’s quite true.)
Dante may be the industry heavyweight, but its usefulness in the particular scenario of streaming many channels of audio to a computer for capture seems to be limited, and the pace of support for new systems is a bit underwhelming.
Hmm, I am used to use computer which meets my requirements and which are compatible to my used environment. I don‘t switch operating systems and hardware until I can use them in my environment. That means for me that a new platform, like the M1 from Apple, will be on hold until I can use them. Nobody forces me to use all the new fancy gadgets made by Apple at the moment they release them. Apple is best known for removing previous introduces API without respect for all the third party vendors of hard- and software. So these vendors have to adopt their products, or in the worst case re develop them, so that they can be used with the new hip and fancy apple gadget.
So, tell me, who should be blamed for that situation? For me only Apple is responsible when there is a dead end scenario for their products. It is not possible that the whole music industry will jump immediately after Apple says „jump now“. But I am ok with that. Maybe in five years I will reevaluate the situation with this new gadgets whether they are then usefull or not. It is always no good idea to be an early adopter at all.
Why the defensiveness? What I’m saying simply boils down to, “It would be great to have a more compatible solution for multichannel audio streaming over Ethernet.”
Personally, I try to stick to solutions that adhere to standards and don’t put me in the position of waiting months or years for new hardware and software support. I’m sure Dante is great when you’re able to plan an entire installation around its support requirements, but that’s not what I’m doing.
“It would be great to have a more compatible solution for multichannel audio streaming over Ethernet.”
And I was trying to say that this is not Milan or AVB for the near future in our A&H context. And I tried to explain why…
There are simple limitations for Mac users that can be solved by the vendors.
If Audinate is disabling the limit in DVS (maybe for extra money) this would be a very good decision for both PC and Mac Users.
Or somebody needs to build a PCIe card, or a Thunderbolt/USB interface with Dante, maybe they can give them a fancy name, something like RedNet?
Or you buy a PC just for recording, you can call it “recorder”…
“Irgendwas ist immer”
And I was trying to say that this is not Milan or AVB for the near future in our A&H context. And I tried to explain why…
I don’t think anyone much cares whether the solution is AVB, Milan, Dante, etc. All that matters in the end is that it’s available, supported, and cost-effective. To an extent, Dante is that solution, but it comes with a lot of caveats — including both the lack of a clear support path for one of the major platforms and rather eye-wattering pricing on much of the hardware. The entire argument that Dante is superior because it doesn’t require dedicated networking hardware, for instance, is largely moot, since you could buy enough switches to power an AVB installation 10 times over for the price difference between common AVB and Dante hardware.
At least some AVB hardware also supports class compliant USB streaming of 128 bidirectional 96kHz channels, making compatibility a non-issue across all platforms and operating systems. With Dante, we’re still waiting for support for an OS and hardware that’s been out for half a year. There are absolutely good reasons that’s a hard problem, in both cases, but it also didn’t have to be a problem at all.
None of that is to say that AVB is necessarily the right option for A&H, but Dante is also not the solution to everyone’s needs.
If Audinate is disabling the limit in DVS (maybe for extra money) this would be a very good decision for both PC and Mac Users.
Indeed, that would be an easy solution to the specific problem I’m trying to solve, if Audinate chose to make it so.
Or somebody needs to build a PCIe card, or a Thunderbolt/USB interface with Dante, maybe they can give them a fancy name, something like RedNet? Or you buy a PC just for recording, you can call it “recorder”…
Condescension just muddies what you’re trying to say. Please don’t. If there’s some hardware I’ve missed, please point it out, don’t insult my intelligence. Or just move on, since this isn’t really a discussion of AVB.
including both the lack of a clear support path for one of the major platforms
If you mean operating systems… then it lacks support of 2 major platforms
Linux is not supported as well… so for a Linux user AVB or Milan would be the only solution at the moment
the tools are available as source code…
At least some AVB hardware also supports class compliant USB streaming of 128 bidirectional 96kHz channels
none of the available devices I’m aware off support more than 64 channels, maybe I missed the device you have in mind?
With Dante, we’re still waiting for support for an OS and hardware that’s been out for half a year. There are absolutely good reasons that’s a hard problem, in both cases, but it also didn’t have to be a problem at all.The Apple people ignore the audio and video business more and more... and introduced a lot of problems with their last 3 major MacOS updates a lot of compatibility issues...
We will see where it goes…
All this seems to me to be an exercise. Workable solutions exist already. I still use OSX High Sierra on 2012 Macs (MBPs) for my Dante network. So in the case of my network, and for my requirements, this “outdated” system, both in terms of hardware and operating system works perfectly for me. Tried, true and tested.
So, like anyone with any products, and let’s just keep it to audio now, each user will need to decide how to do what they need done, today. Is your Pro Tools not working on your brand new Mac? You have a decision to make. Is you mixer not allowing recording 128 channels of audio at 24/96? You have a decision to make. But there is little to be gained by trying to foretell the future and wish that it was happening today. Let the designers do that and simply put as good a system together as you can and come as close as you can today to manage your needed workflow. If things somewhere get better, you have decisions to make. Compatibility, cost, expected lifespan, the like.
Or as my respected friend say, “go out and make a recording”.
D.